A big family teaches kids something they can't get anywhere else

It's all about teamwork. And fun.

I admit, I'm biased. I am biased toward our big family. A big reason is this idea that we're a big team. I was telling a friend the other day about a team I was on way back in the day in Bend, Ore., that was the best team I've ever been on. In my senior at Bend High School our cross country team had the fastest runner in the state transfer out before the season started. It could have been a big blow.

But we had a couple of freshmen -- Brent Westfall and Jimmy Robertson -- come in and join the varsity and along with Dave Williams, Scott Nyden, Chris Hamilton, Jared Anderson and yours truly, we ended up winning the state championship by 69 points. What I loved about the team is that it was a bunch of guys from different backgrounds -- a few of us also ran track but we also had a golfer, a couple of baseball players and a national-class cross country skier on the team -- who worked hard and enjoyed being together. There were also races where one or two guys may not have the best day, but other guys were there to pick up the slack. It was simply a great team.

A family should be many things. One of those is a team. I like to think our family operates like a team. It's cool to see kids fill different roles naturally. We have a couple of them who often do the dishes without being asked. Talk about a blessing!

Some of our kids, before serving themselves at mealtime, dish up the youngest kids at dinner. Without being asked.

We have some kids who are comedians. They make us laugh. We have kids who take care of Flopsy and even organize the search parties when she makes her frequent hops to freedom.

We have kids who pitch in with the cooking. And man can they cook! We have kids who organize family games of soccer or capture the flag or hold family board game nights.

Brenton sprung for four large pizzas on Sunday and is notorious for making late-night family Taco Bell runs. Those are MVP type of performances.

Seth loves to snuggle. Ask Evie how valuable that is when she comes home from college. Last time she was home I walked into the living room and she had both Seth and Judah snuggling with her on the couch.

Kids help other kids get dressed and ready for church. They all help pick up the toys. MerriGrace cleans the bathrooms and no one asks her. Is she an angel?

What the kids learn is that part of being family can entail sacrificing your own interests for the good of the group. Certainly the kids could always look out for number one and not help out their brothers or sisters, or do dishes, or clean bathrooms, or take care of pets, or spring for pizza and all the other stuff that they do.

But they love being a part of this team. This family.

I am so thankful.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 1. `Hey Dad. Where Are You?'

Let's see...a Taco Bell run or this sunset?

Do you ever get to a late Sunday afternoon, take stock of your life, check your mutual funds, contemplate the meaning of life, wonder if anyone working on Wall Street who engaged in shady mortgage fraud and insider trading deals has a soul ... and weigh whether it's worth it to cook dinner?

There's something about fixing Sunday night dinner that I find particularly agitating. Even daunting, repulsive and annoying. And I'm a dude who loves to cook. I can't put my finger on exactly why I don't like to cook on Sundays. After shedding my pastor duties after church I tend to "check out." You might find me in the garage piddling around making a coffee table. Sometimes I nap. I might take a jaunt to the store and act like I'm shopping for the week's meals and blow it all on ice cream and non-essentials like fancy coffee creamer and crazy cheeses made in Holland. Does this make me a bad person?

I mean, I'm usually a pretty good guy. I recycle. I put my shopping cart in the cart corral in the parking lot instead of in the space next to the van, even in hard rains. I clean up the lint screen in the dryer. I yield in the traffic roundabout and stop for pedestrians trying to enter crosswalks. I buy Julie raspberries because I know she loves them even though they're really expensive this time of year. Really expensive like cheeses made in Holland.

So we got to Sunday afternoon just before 5 p.m. and there were all these kids looking really, really hungry. The thought actually crossed my mind to cook something. The other thought I had was that they wouldn't starve if they didn't have dinner. I mean, we have bread and peanut butter in the house. But then I'm not going to eat a p.b. & j sandwich for dinner ... so I was faced with what's known as a "parental dilemma." You know the one. Where you have to decide if it's in the best interests of your family to eat at Hardee's or Taco Bell. I had a hankering for a burrito so the choice was fairly easy.

I got the lowdown from everyone of what they wanted from Taco Bell, loaded Seth in the van and took off down the street ... except I glanced at the sky and it was on fire. It's a three-block run down to the beach from my house and my intention was that I would race down there while obeying all traffic laws, snap a sunset photo and then get to Taco Bell before my children suffered privation leading to acute starvation and other health-related issues.

I got to the beach, told Seth to sit tight, ran out to the shoreline, snapped a photo and ran back to the van. Piece of cake. Except I knew that the show was just beginning. It would be a monumental sunset because literally the sky was aflame ... so I fetched Seth out of the van and we frolicked on the beach while I documented our interlude via my iPhone. Yes, I had total disregard for the well-being of my family. Yes, I got a phone call from someone high up in the Sabo household who was surprised to learn I had not even made it out of the neighborhood.

But I got some killer clicks.

Seth gets photo-bombed by the sunset.

Ultimately, I made it to Taco Bell. No one in the Sabo house had starved. They appeared perplexed at how long it took for me to make a Taco Bell run considering it's literally a few minutes away. But hey, boy did Seth and I make some remembories, as Evie used to say when she was a little girl.